[OPEN/EVENT] There was a face on a hoarding that someone had drawn on;

[vampdetective]

Who: Angel & you!
Where: Quor'toth.
When: 12/02 - 12/05
Rating: PG for now.
Summary: Until now, all Angel has known about Quor'toth has been secondhand. He had no idea that something could be even worse than what he'd imagined.
The Story:
a. settlement

[It doesn't take him long to find the first drawing after he wakes up. It had been on the wall nearest the front door of the hut he'd found himself in, the image itself presented like a crudely pieced-together shrine.

He doesn't have to go any further to know where he is, where they've all wound up. He doesn't have to seek out any locals and ask. The picture is enough to say it all, his stomach knotting as he finds himself unable to tear himself away from his son's image. It's been too long since he's seen Connor in person, years, and even then, their last meeting had been brief-- but he still saw his son's face almost every night, silently mourning all the ways he had failed him.

He'd let Connor be taken to this place. In the moment, it had seemed like the only way to save him. He hadn't had any other options, not if he wanted his son to live, but what Connor had suffered here-- it had broken him beyond repair. The life he'd led after Quor'toth could barely be be called living at all, until Angel had made a deal with the devil to fix it.

When he finally pulls himself away, Angel starts investigating the settlement as a whole, looking into hut after hut, feeling his chest grow tighter as he finds image after image of his son, some drawings more elaborate than others, but all of them unmistakably Connor. He knows he can't stay in the settlement for long, knows that he's going to have to explore beyond it, and he can't help but wonder if hoping to find Connor himself in this place is entirely in vain. This isn't the real Quor'toth, it's Wonderland toying with them, but Wonderland had done him small kindnesses before. Maybe it would do the same now.

He exhales, emerging from the sixth or seventh hut he'd chosen to rummage through. Before he goes anywhere, he needs to make sure that everyone else who'd woken up here was safe, and knew better than to wander beyond the settlement unprotected. After that, he needs to find Faith-- to hear what this place has to offer, because this has to be her memory. Given what he knows of Quor'toth, he'll want to be as prepared as possible before setting out.]

b. wilderness

[Nothing about Quor'toth's landscape is at all comforting. There are no portals to Quor'toth is the phrase that keeps echoing in his head, over and over as he presses onward. He's unarmed, but that doesn't matter. Angel himself is a weapon, and learning the truth of this place, of what his son had been forced to suffer, was far more important than the feeling of security a broadsword or an axe would have offered him.

There are no portals to Quor'toth, and for a very good reason. It's probably the most hellish of all the demon dimensions in this known plane of existence. The only way to Quor'toth is to rip right through the fabric of reality.

Connor had been strong enough to punch his way through, desperate enough to claw his way back to their world, and now Angel was beginning to fully understand why. He's prepared to fight and claw his own way through whatever demons he counters, prepared to do whatever it takes to understand this place-- and to take his anger out on it, that anger that he's been carrying for years, ever since he'd let his own son slip away from him.]

c. wildcard

[Whatever you like! Angel will mostly be outside of the settlement after the first day, though he may stop by occasionally just to make sure that people are staying safe. He's mostly likely to be found out hunting demons or scouring the landscape for any further trace of his son. If you want to plot something specific, feel free to PM me or PP necrofancy, otherwise leave a starter and I will match your format and play along!]

Comments

[littledhampir]

[It's one of those cases where Angel's honesty upon their first meeting, would have been welcomed by most but Rose? All she heard was that he had killed and he might still kill again. He was an anomaly in her black and white world of good and evil and she found herself watching and waiting, expecting he was going to explode again.]

If I wanted to fight you? You'd know. [She never was one who went the verbal route when she could just slam her fist into somebody's face.] I just don't trust you. There's a difference.

[vampdetective]

That's fair.

[He's not going to argue the trust point, anyway.]

Trust is earned, not freely given. I haven't earned it yet.

[littledhampir]

I don't make a habit of trusting people who admit to having a murder addiction.

[It wasn't exactly what he'd said but the way he talked like not killing people was something he had to work at? It didn't sit right with her. Maybe if she took the time to understand it all better, she wouldn't be so quick to judge but taking the time involved that pesky trust thing...]

Where I'm from? I protect people from things like you. [Except where she was from? They didn't really try to get back on the wagon.] A lot like you anyway.

[She supposed she could give him that much; He wasn't as bad as a Strigoi. Yet.]

[vampdetective]

Probably smart.

[He knows who and what he is. He could nitpick at her choice of words, but there's no reason to.

She's not wrong.]

You mean other vampires. I do that, too.

[Kills his own kind to protect as many people as he can, though sometimes with varying levels of success.]

[littledhampir]

[That, she was not expecting him to say and it's the first time that Rose looks at him, really looks at him rather than glance in his direction with a mixture of suspicion and disdain.]

You. [Immediately skeptical.] You want me to believe you kill Vampires to protect people?